If you are looking to help optimize your website for search engines, sometimes it can be difficult to know what is the right or wrong way to do things, especially if you have never done this before. For that reason you need to pay close attention to the basic do’s and don’ts of proper search engine optimization.
The Do’s of Search Engine Optimization
ü Pay attention to your keywords – In order for your site to truly be optimized for search engines, you need to use relevant, quality keywords throughout your website, even in blogs. When internet users enter in keywords into major search engines, the more often these keywords match those in your website, the higher your ranking will be on these result pages. Proper placement and use of keywords takes time to perfect however, so don’t assume you can just guess.
ü Link to relevant sites – Link building is a great way to help boost SEO, especially when you link to sites that are related to yours. Start by asking related businesses if you can add a link within your website to theirs, and vice versa, this will help to draw search engine attention and attention from traffic on other websites to your own.
ü Create quality content for your audiences – The content of your website should be informative and relevant to your product or services, and with keywords well integrated into it. Poor writing and poor English throughout your site aren’t going to appeal to visitors or search engines.
ü Sign up for online directories – Online directories, like About.com, are great places to draw more attention to your website through some of the major search engines. For some ideas for online directories, take a look at 20 Top Online Directories for Local Business SEO.
The Don’ts of Search Engine Optimization
- Don’t use irrelevant links– When you attempt to create links to your site with irrelevant websites you can actually be causing your website to lose its ranking with some search engines. Many webmaster guidelines frown on this method of link building.
- Don’t overlook the webmaster guidelines – Don’t make the mistake of ignoring the webmaster guidelines on major search engines. Consider their rules and guidelines your rules and guidelines for optimizing your site.
- Don’t use irrelevant keywords (or keyword ‘stuff’) – Random keywords that don’t have anything to do with your site are going to cause you to have low metrics and lose ranking. On the same note, overfilling your website with nothing but keywords isn’t necessarily good either, so pay close attention to your keyword density, as noted in Keyword Density – How Much Is Too Much?.
- Don’t forget about your metrics – Staying up to date on the metrics of your website, including your ranking and conversion rate, are important to the success of your internet marketing. One of the biggest mistakes that a business owner can make is not understanding their metrics or not reviewing them frequently enough.
While there are plenty of businesses that undertake their optimization efforts themselves, don’t underestimate the guidance and knowledge that you can gain from a professional SEO consultant.
